Anna Margolin was born in 1887 in modern-day Belarus and died in 1952 in New York City. When her poems—now classics of Yiddish-language literature–were first published, literary critics declared that she must have been a man using a female name, because they believed no woman could write that well.

Maia Evrona’s poems, as well as excerpts from her memoir on living with chronic illness, have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Harpur Palate and elsewhere. More of her translations from Yiddish have appeared or are forthcoming in The Massachusetts Review, Poetry Magazine and other venues.